The following relates generally to wireless communications, and more specifically to dynamic beam management for wireless communications.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include fourth generation (4G) systems such as a Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) systems, and fifth generation (5G) systems which may be referred to as New Radio (NR) systems. These systems may employ technologies such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), or discrete Fourier transform-spread-OFDM (DFT-S-OFDM). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or network access nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
Next generation wireless communications systems may rely on millimeter wave (mmW) communication technologies that utilize beamformed transmissions/receptions to provide directional communications. Each beamformed transmission/reception may have an associated beam configuration, such as a beam width, a beam direction, a beam shape, etc. A transmit beam may refer to a digital/analog antenna configuration that provides a directional transmission towards a receiving device, such as a UE. A receive beam may refer to a digital/analog antenna configuration that provides directional reception of a beam from a transmitting device, such as a base station. For a beam pair used for wireless communications, the transmit beam may be the same as or different from the receive beam (e.g., due to beam reflection, diffraction, or the like) and the transmit or receive beams may change for each transmission.
Some systems (e.g., mmW systems) present unique challenges with respect to timing, interference management, medium access, or the like. For example, the directionality of transmissions and/or receptions prove a certain level of deafness in a mmW network, e.g., a device may be “deaf” with respect to an incoming beamformed signal if the device's receive beam configuration is directed away from the transmitting device. Different beam configurations may be appropriate for different transmission distances. A UE in a high mobility scenario may quickly change its relative distance from a serving cell and therefore, the base station may change beams as the relative location of the UE changes. Frequently exchanging beam configuration information and selecting a beam as the UE changes its relative location may take a significant amount of time and thus be too slow to be used by a UE in a high mobility scenario, which may result in the UE being deaf or the devices being delayed in selecting a strong beam.